---
title: santa fe flooded from the arroyo
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/santa-fe-flooded-from-the-arroyo
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/santa-fe-flooded-from-the-arroyo.md
subtitle: "arroyo hondo, a private road, and a south-side street. not the tap."
category: act
---

# santa fe flooded from the arroyo

*arroyo hondo, a private road, and a south-side street. not the tap.*

Late September in Santa Fe smells like wet piñon, and the chamisa is going yellow along every road out of town. Most years the arroyos south of the city are where you walk the dog: sand, a few cottonwoods, tire tracks, dry. On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, Arroyo Hondo was none of those things. It came up over its banks near Paseo Galisteo, and by mid-afternoon access across it was cut.

If you searched for Santa Fe flooding this week, here is the short answer. The flooding was an arroyo, two private roads, a county list of low-water crossings, and a south-side street. It was not the mountain the city drinks from, not the Buckman wells and diversion on the Rio Grande, and not the Santa Fe River. Nobody reported those down. The repair bill and the fix live in different places depending on which one you mean.

## what flooded in santa fe

Each place has its own report, its own count, and its own owner.

| place | what happened | who reported it |
|---|---|---|
| Arroyo Hondo near Paseo Galisteo, about 4 miles east-southeast of Agua Fria | Overflowed around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday; access cut to about 20–30 homes | KOB, September 29 |
| Marquez Ville Road, a private road at Paseo Galisteo | Part of the road collapsed into a sinkhole around 3 p.m.; about 20 homes; no injuries | KOAT, September 29 |
| Sibley Road near Cañoncito, private | Washed out after more than 24 hours of rain; about a dozen households stranded | Santa Fe New Mexican, September 30 |
| County low-water crossings and trails | County Road 51 at Ojo de la Vaca, San Ysidro Crossing, and Cañada Village Road at Camino La Llorona closed; Rail Trail between 9 Mile Road and Rabbit Road and the Spur Trail east of Falcon Way closed | Santa Fe County list, September 30 |
| Calle Kryshanna, Tierra Real, off Airport Road | Ankle-deep water on parts of the street Monday night; water under homes; city crews pumping | Santa Fe New Mexican, September 29 |

Those three household numbers are three reports about three places, and they are not added here. "About 20–30" is KOB's count behind the Arroyo Hondo overflow. "About 20" is KOAT's count on Marquez Ville. "About a dozen" is the New Mexican's count on Sibley. Nobody has published a reconciled total, so this post does not invent one.

## arroyo hondo took the road

An **arroyo** is a wash that is dry most days and carries mesa runoff when it rains. The [first post in this series](/guide/what-an-arroyo-actually-is?from=guide) defines it properly. Here it is enough that Arroyo Hondo comes off the high ground south and east of town, and that the people along it mostly cross it on low-water crossings and private roads that were graded, not bridged.

By the afternoon of September 29 the ground had been wet for about two weeks. The late monsoon was still running, and the remnants of Polo and moisture from Tropical Storm Odalys were feeding it from the Pacific. The National Weather Service's David Craft described the setup to the Albuquerque Journal as monsoon flow with embedded disturbances plus Eastern Pacific remnant moisture. Not a hurricane landfall. Not a tornado. Rain on ground that could not take more rain.

Santa Fe led KOB's reported storm totals at 4.55 inches. The Santa Fe airport, out on the flat south of town, recorded 2.66 inches. Those are two gauges in two places and they stay two numbers. The spread is the lesson: an arroyo collects what fell upstream of it, not what fell at the runway. In the Albuquerque Journal's photograph from Arroyo Hondo Open Space on Tuesday, the water looks like a river. It is an arroyo doing what arroyos do once every few years, into roads built for the other years.

## two private roads and a question nobody has answered

Marquez Ville Road is private. Around 3 p.m. Tuesday the overflowing arroyo took part of it, KOAT's John Rupolo reported, leaving a sinkhole and about 20 homes with no way out. Nobody was hurt. The City of Santa Fe closed Marquez Ville Road at Paseo Galisteo and Cañada Village Road at Camino La Llorona. The county said it was coordinating with its public works department. What nobody said, because nobody knew, was who would pay to put the road back.

Sibley Road near Cañoncito, southeast of the city, is private too. After more than 24 hours of rain it washed out, and the New Mexican's Lily Alexander and Nicholas Gilmore reported about a dozen households stranded on September 30. County spokesperson Shawna Graves said the county does not usually maintain private roads, and it was evaluating.

If you own a house behind one of these roads, this is the sentence that matters. A private road in an arroyo is usually maintained by the owners or a road association, under whatever easement exists. The county's closure list keeps you from driving into the hole. It does not, on its own, fill the hole. For Marquez Ville and Sibley, who fills it was still unsettled as of September 30 in every published account, and this post will not pretend otherwise.

## calle kryshanna

Across town, in the Tierra Real mobile home community off Airport Road, the flood was smaller and closer. Monday night, rainwater stood ankle-deep on parts of Calle Kryshanna. Belen Queva told the New Mexican there were a couple of inches in her garage and water running beneath her home. City crews brought pumps.

This is the south-side version of the same storm: not an arroyo over its banks, but a street that drained slower than the sky filled it. City crews pumped it. Hold the two pictures side by side. Calle Kryshanna had a pump truck by morning. Marquez Ville had a collapsed road, Sibley had a washout, and neither had an answer on who repairs it.

## not the tap

Here is the sentence this post exists to say clearly. The municipal watershed above the city, the Buckman diversion and wells on the Rio Grande, and the Santa Fe River through downtown were not reported down, damaged, or out of service in any account read for this piece. Santa Fe's flood came out of a wash, not out of the water it drinks.

That matters because the capital's supply story is already written, and it is a different story. [What Santa Fe depends on](/guide/what-santa-fe-depends-on?from=guide) walks through what fills the city's taps: the mountain watershed, the river water imported through Buckman, and the aquifers. The ditches do not. None of those three sources were reported down in September. The four operating [acequias](/guide/santa-fe-acequias?from=guide) that still run through the city were not reported down either, and they are not this flood. They are community irrigation ditches with their own parciantes and mayordomos. They are not the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District's canals that took stormwater down the valley, and on no account read here were they the flooded party.

## two pulses, and one arroyo that is not the other

September brought two pulses to northern New Mexico, and they should never be written as one storm.

Pulse A was the river story. Around September 17–18, monsoon runoff reconnected the Rio Grande from Bernalillo toward Elephant Butte. The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District's Jason Casuga named the inflows for KOAT: the Jemez Mountains, **Galisteo Arroyo**, and Albuquerque's North Diversion Channel. The [third post in this series](/guide/the-rio-grande-came-back?from=guide) tells that story and holds Casuga's line on it: the scale of this drought is much larger than any small burst of rain events.

Pulse B was the storm that began Monday night, September 28, and peaked September 29–30: streets first, then arroyos and roads. Every Santa Fe fact in this post is Pulse B.

One caution for anyone mapping this. Galisteo Arroyo, which Casuga named as a Pulse A inflow to the Rio Grande, is a different name from Arroyo Hondo, which took the roads near Paseo Galisteo in Pulse B. A shared word is not evidence they are the same channel, and this post does not assume it. Keep them apart until a hydrologist puts them together.

## who already does the work

Nothing in Santa Fe County waited for a protocol. The county's road crews focused on low-water crossings. City crews pumped Calle Kryshanna. Acting Governor Howie Morales signed five executive orders, 2026-073 through 2026-077, releasing up to $3.75 million in state response money for shelter, food, and transport across New Mexico. That is response. It is not a repair estimate for any road in this post, and none has been published.

The grader is still necessary. The crossing still has to be rebuilt by the people who build crossings. The private road still has to be settled between the owners and the county. Nothing below replaces that.

:::johnson
**the road failed where the arroyo crossed it. the fix is in the arroyo above the road.**
Ensurance funds the living channel that should carry this water — the wash, its floodplain, and the mesa that sheds into it — as a second layer on top of the county's crossings and the city's pumps. The parent agent for this river basin is live.

[see the rio grande river agent →](https://ensurance.app/rio-grande-river.basin?from=guide)
:::

## what ensurance funds here

Every road in this post failed where a graded surface met a channel carrying more water than the surface was built for. You can rebuild the surface to the old spec. You can also pay attention to the channel.

An arroyo's capacity to carry a storm is not fixed. A headcut working upstream, a floodplain narrowed by fill, a crossing that pinches the flow, bare ground on the mesa above: each pushes more water faster into the place where the road is. Grade control, a floodplain allowed to spread, vegetation that holds the bank, and a catchment that soaks instead of sheds do the opposite. That is what the living channel does for the road, whether or not anyone writes it down.

**Ensurance** funds that channel as the natural asset it is, before the next storm, on a certificate tied to a named place. Here the named place is the Rio Grande river agent, which is live. An `arroyo channel` line under that agent is in ideation: a certificate meant for arroyo and floodplain work above the kind of crossings and ditches that took stormwater in September. It is not minted, and which arroyos it would reach is not decided. If you own land on one of these arroyos, sit on a county road committee, or manage open space in a wash, you can [suggest the arroyo channel line](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=rio-grande-river.basin&name=arroyo%20channel&from=guide) and a person will review it.

Two things this is not. It is not a Santa Fe certificate; the drinking-water system was not reported down. And it is not a replacement for the grader, the pump truck, or the emergency order. A resident on Marquez Ville does not need a new product for this flood. They need the road back and a channel that behaves. The arroyo channel line, in ideation under the Rio Grande agent, is aimed at the second.

## frequently asked questions

### what flooded in santa fe in september 2026?

Arroyo Hondo overflowed near Paseo Galisteo on September 29, 2026, cutting access to about 20–30 homes. Part of Marquez Ville Road, a private road, collapsed, affecting about 20 homes. Sibley Road near Cañoncito, also private, washed out and stranded about a dozen households. The county closed several low-water crossings, and the city pumped Calle Kryshanna off Airport Road. These are separate reports and are not totaled.

### did the santa fe river flood the city?

No report read for this post says so. The flooding was arroyo overflow and street drainage on the south and southeast sides; the municipal watershed, Buckman, and the Santa Fe River were not reported down.

### who fixes a private road after an arroyo?

Usually the owners or a road association, under whatever easement exists. Santa Fe County said it does not usually maintain private roads and was evaluating Marquez Ville and Sibley. As of September 30, 2026, repair responsibility for both roads was unsettled. The state's executive-order money was for emergency response, not road repair.

## read next

The ditches down the valley were built to irrigate. The storm used them anyway. Who maintains them: [who maintains an irrigation canal →](/guide/who-maintains-an-irrigation-canal?from=guide)

The live parent for this basin: [rio grande river agent →](https://ensurance.app/rio-grande-river.basin?from=guide)

## sources

[KOB, September 29, 2026 — homes in Santa Fe County cut off by flooding](https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/homes-in-santa-fe-county-cut-off-by-flooding/) — Arroyo Hondo overflow near Paseo Galisteo; about 20–30 homes

[KOAT, John Rupolo, September 29, 2026 — arroyo overflows in Santa Fe County, causing a road to collapse](https://www.koat.com/article/arroyo-overflows-in-santa-fe-county-causing-a-road-to-collapse/73952191) — Marquez Ville Road sinkhole; about 20 homes; private road, repair responsibility uncertain

[City of Santa Fe release, September 29, 2026, via PublicNow](https://www.publicnow.com/view/52423667E65DD4783135B1F3297E1B44DAE6B7EA) — closures at Marquez Ville Road / Paseo Galisteo and Cañada Village Road / Camino La Llorona

[Santa Fe New Mexican, Cormac Dodd, September 29, 2026 — floodwaters strike across New Mexico](https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/floodwaters-strike-across-new-mexico-with-more-rain-in-the-forecast/article_6b6eab79-e205-45f2-b4c8-5db1c8aa8943.html) — Calle Kryshanna, Belen Queva, city pumping; statewide flood watch

[Santa Fe New Mexican, Lily Alexander and Nicholas Gilmore, September 30, 2026 — acting governor declares state of emergency](https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/acting-governor-declares-state-of-emergency-as-new-mexico-responds-to-ongoing-flooding/article_a6d416eb-2252-46ce-8ac1-8b2975eb95a6.html) — Sibley Road; about a dozen households; county closure list; Shawna Graves on private roads

[KOB, Jonathan Fjeld, September 30, 2026 — Santa Fe leads recent rainfall in New Mexico](https://www.kob.com/news/top-news/albuquerque-breaks-september-rain-record-santa-fe-leads-recent-rainfall-in-nm/) — 4.55 inches reported storm total; 2.66 inches at the Santa Fe airport

[Albuquerque Journal — flood watches expand as rains drench New Mexico](https://www.abqjournal.com/news/flood-watches-expand-as-rains-drench-new-mexico/3131381) — NWS meteorologist David Craft on the storm setup; Arroyo Hondo Open Space photograph

[KOAT, updated September 18, 2026 — recent rain restores Rio Grande flows, but officials say drought remains](https://www.koat.com/article/recent-rain-restores-rio-grande-flows-but-officials-say-drought-remains/73796076) — Jason Casuga, MRGCD: inflows including Galisteo Arroyo; 0.47 to 93 cfs; drought sentence

[Office of the Governor of New Mexico](https://www.governor.state.nm.us/) — Executive Orders 2026-073 through 2026-077, September 30, 2026; emergency response funding

## the series

1. [what an arroyo actually is](/guide/what-an-arroyo-actually-is?from=guide)
2. [albuquerque flooding was the arroyo](/guide/albuquerque-flooding-was-the-arroyo?from=guide)
3. [the rio grande came back](/guide/the-rio-grande-came-back?from=guide)
4. [santa fe flooded from the arroyo](/guide/santa-fe-flooded-from-the-arroyo?from=guide) — this post
5. [who maintains an irrigation canal](/guide/who-maintains-an-irrigation-canal?from=guide)